


and yet

by achievingelysium



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Coran-centric, Corangst, Gen, also he looks at everyone around him and he just sees children, basically Coran has a lot of thoughts after fall of the castle of lions, coran deserves more fics, i mean. lance kind of used himself to shield coran from a blast, more like short and sAD, short and sweet, so heres my contribution, to be precise, validate me please lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 01:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10651755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achievingelysium/pseuds/achievingelysium
Summary: After the Castle of Lions is reclaimed from Sendak, Coran finds himself left alone to his thoughts— guilt and sorrow for children who do not belong in a war.written forvoltron angst weekon tumblr | day one: smile





	and yet

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to the world that is corangst

_You cannot count age by numbers._

It’s something Coran has learned, something that his grandfather used to teach him when he was young. He’d carry Coran on his shoulders as he walked through the streets of Altea, telling him the stories of things that had come and gone.

_You cannot count— you cannot measure._

Coran clasps his hands behind his back and paces. Forwards, back. Forwards, back. One foot in front of the other, step, step, turn.

There’s a crease in his clothing; Coran uses a hand to smooth it out and catches sight of his glove, stained a dark brown.

Forwards, back. One foot—

The floor is burnt in places, scorched by fire. Coran clenches his shaking hands into fists.

Forwards, back. Forwards, back. One foot in front of the other, step, step, step, turn, turn, one foot—

He stops. The silence that follows – the absence of his footsteps – is jarring.

“Alright, then, Coran, old boy,” he says out loud, the same way his grandfather used to. “Breathe now. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Count to five now. It’s alright— smile for me, yeah?”

He breathes, then says: “One.”

There’s nothing left to distract him here. The battle is over. There’s no paladin to talk to him, no Crystal to retrieve; he’s checked the systems six times over, has looked over the Castle’s statistics.

Now, while the Castle and its inhabitants slumber, Coran stays awake.

He catches sight of his glove again. The memories trickle in, slowly at first, then faster and faster until there are waves roaring in his mind.

_A beeping noise. A sharp intake of air._

_He turned._

_“Coran, look out!”_

“Two,” he says, closing his eyes, but he can’t erase the memory of heat burning at his back, of the explosion that painted the room in a warm glow.

_Lance threw himself forward, tackling Coran. A hand latched onto his wrist, and a body curled around his, taking the blast._

“Three.”

 _You cannot count age in numbers_ , he thinks, but Lance is so _young._

Eighteen years. To Coran, who is nearing five hundred, Lance is but a child. He should be home with his family, a bright smile on his face as he talks fast and loud. He should not be here, locked away in a healing chamber, face serene and at peace.

Coran starts his pacing again.

Forwards, back. One foot in front of the other, step, step, turn. It’s a familiar thing, and Coran finds comfort in the repetitiveness of it. Forwards, forwards, until his pace has turned into a walk, and his feet carry him through the empty, haunted halls of the Castle and into the med-bay.

He’s not surprised to find the others there, even though they’d all parted ways a few vargas ago.

On the steps in front of the cryopods are blankets and pillows that have been scattered about. Pidge is curled up next to Hunk, the two of them holding onto each other. Their fingers are intertwined. Pidge’s glasses are askew, her face pressed to Hunk’s chest, rising and falling steadily.

Keith is there, too, not quite close to the others. His hand is close to Pidge’s, though; he wonders if they’d fallen asleep like that, holding hands, bound together in a way that they usually aren’t.

The blanket around Keith has been kicked away. Coran gathers it in his hands and covers him back up before he sees the dark look on Keith’s face.

“Keith,” he says gently, but Coran doesn’t want to wake him.

The paladin turns in his sleep, moaning a little. Coran’s heart aches; with an instinct he’d buried with his children, he reaches out and smooths the crease that’s formed between his brows.

“Keith,” he whispers. “It’s alright. All is well.”

Coran doesn’t know if Keith hears him, but the teen sighs, and a tension that he hadn’t noticed releases.

He goes to Pidge and Hunk, studying them for a moment before he says the same words to their sleeping forms. He says it again and again until he believes it.

_It’s alright. All is well._

Shiro is slumped against the wall, a blanket at his feet. His face is half in light, half in a shadow cast by the healing pod he’s next to. He stirs when Coran kneels next to him.

“Coran?”

His eyes crack open. A white strand of hair falls in front of his face, and before Coran can think about it, he pushes it out of the way.

“Go back to sleep, Shiro.”

“Lance—” gasps Shiro, his eyes pained. “I… I couldn’t protect him.”

Coran thinks about Lance using his own body as a shield, thinks about how terrible it is that Lance’s first thought is to save him. He squeezes Shiro’s shoulder.

“I couldn’t either,” he says softly.

He glances to the left at the cryopod.

“He’s safe now,” Coran says. “It’s alright.”

Shiro shakes his head, but he falls silent. He looks tired; there are dark smudges under his eyes and lines where there shouldn’t be.

"Rest," Coran says a little more insistently. "I'll watch over Lance."

Shiro blinks, but he seems to be fighting a losing battle. Coran tugs the blanket around him and says soft words of comfort until even Shiro is asleep again, leaving him the only one awake.

He takes a moment to look at Shiro. He's older than the others, but even then, he's still young. The things he has seen are terrible; sometimes, Coran is glad he can't remember most of it. It's not right, but he's glad for it all the same.

"Four," he counts, and Shiro sighs in his sleep.

Coran twists his fingers together, his heart cold. He finds that there's tightness in his throat, and he rubs at his chest, hoping that it will go away.

Lance drifts. The healing pod is still working, a soft, monotonous humming coming from the machine.

Standing here in front of him is what hurts the most.

“Why, Lance?”

Children are not supposed to die before their parents. In the same vein, Lance is not supposed to protect _him_. And yet, and yet—

And yet, he thinks, he has let both happen.

He rests a hand on the glass of the pod and lets it thrum underneath his touch. If he waits, he’ll find a heartbeat there, too, pulsing steadily. If he waits, Lance will wake up.

His reflection stares back at him.

They’re all children playing a grown-up game. Coran wonders when it will end — if it will end. The day it does, he knows, they won’t be children anymore.

With every day that passes, Coran watches them grow older. They step into armor that both fits perfectly and yet is too big for them. Their hearts are hardening to immortal stone.

Alteans may live long lives, but they do not last like scars do.

 _Count to five_ , he reminds himself. _It’s alright. Smile for me_.

Pidge. Hunk. Keith. Shiro. Lance.

One, two, three, four—

“—five,” he finishes. Lance does not wake.

Coran looks at his reflection in the glass. His lips tug upwards, but the smile on his face isn’t real.

**Author's Note:**

> i spent this entire fic like: i have no idea what i'm doing. tbh im still on the fence about this but, ya know.
> 
> okay but can we all agree that coran deserves more written about him? because he does, okay. i hope y'all liked it!!! (please validate me!! ;A;)


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